The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [188]
When they rose to go to bed he asked: “You packed the tablets?”
“Yes, a new tube. But I am sure I shan’t want any tonight.”
“Neither shall I,” said John, “the air is wonderful.”
During the following days he considered the tactical problem. It was entirely simple. He had the “staff-solution” already. He considered it in the words and form he had used in the army. “. . . Courses open to the enemy . . . achievement of surprise . . . consolidation of success.” The staff-solution was exemplary. At the beginning of the first week, he began to put it into execution.
Already, by easy stages, he had made himself known in the village. Elizabeth was a friend of the owner; he the returned hero, still a little strange in civvy street. “The first holiday my wife and I have had together for six years,” he told them in the golf club and, growing more confidential at the bar, hinted that they were thinking of making up for lost time and starting a family.
On another evening he spoke of war-strain, of how in this war the civilians had had a worse time of it than the services. His wife, for instance; stuck it all through the blitz; office work all day, bombs at night. She ought to get right away, alone somewhere for a long stretch; her nerves had suffered; nothing serious, but to tell the truth he wasn’t quite happy about it. As a matter of fact, he had found her walking in her sleep once or twice in London.
His companions knew of similar cases; nothing to worry about, but it wanted watching; didn’t want it to develop into anything worse. Had she seen a doctor?
Not yet, John said. In fact she didn’t know she had been sleep-walking. He had got her back to bed without waking her. He hoped the sea air would do her good. In fact, she seemed much better already. If she showed any more signs of the trouble when they got home, he knew a very good man to take her to.
The golf club was full of sympathy. John asked if there was a good doctor in the neighbourhood. Yes, they said, old Mackenzie in the village, a first-class man, wasted in a little place like that; not at all a stick-in-the-mud. Read the latest books; psychology and all that. They couldn’t think why Old Mack had never specialized and made a name for himself.
“I think I might go and talk to Old Mack about it,” said John.
“Do. You couldn’t find a better fellow.”
Elizabeth had a fortnight’s leave. There were still three days to go when John went off to the village to consult Dr. Mackenzie. He found a grey-haired, genial bachelor in a consulting room that was more like a lawyer’s office than a physician’s, book-lined, dark, permeated by tobacco smoke.
Seated in the shabby leather armchair he developed in more precise language the story he had told in the golf club. Dr. Mackenzie listened without comment.
“It’s the first time I’ve run up against anything like this,” he concluded.
At length Dr. Mackenzie said: “You got pretty badly knocked about in the war, Mr. Verney?”
“My knee. It still gives me trouble.”
“Bad time in hospital?”
“Three months. A beastly place outside Rome.”
“There’s always a good deal of nervous shock in an injury of that kind. It often persists when the wound is healed.”
“Yes, but I don’t quite understand . . .”
“My dear Mr. Verney, your wife asked me to say nothing about it, but I think I must tell you that she has already been here to consult me on this matter.”
“About her sleep-walking? But she can’t . . .” then John stopped.
“My dear fellow, I quite understand. She thought you didn’t know. Twice lately you’ve been out of bed and she had to lead you back. She knows all about it.”
John could find nothing to say.
“It’s not the first time,” Dr. Mackenzie continued, “that I’ve been consulted by patients who have told me their symptoms and said they had come on behalf of friends or relations. Usually it’s girls who think they’re in the family-way. It’s an interesting feature of your case that you should want to ascribe the trouble to someone else, probably the decisive feature. I’ve given your wife the name of a man